Jean DuJardin
Jean DuJardin won the Best Actor in a Lead Role for "The Artist" Reuters

Jean Dujardin won the 2012 Oscar for Best Actor in a Lead Role for the role of George Valentin in The Artist Sunday at the 84th annual Academy Awards.

Dujardin stars as a silent movie actor in 1920s Hollywood who fears that the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to disappear into obscurity. As he struggles with what the next decade will bring, he also finds himself drawn to Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a young dancer about to make it big on the screen.

Artist director Michel Hazanavicius also won the Oscar for Best Director. But Dujardin, well known in his native France, had some stiff competition at the Academy Awards this year: George Clooney (for The Descendants), Demián Bichir (A Better Life), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Brad Pitt (Moneyball).

Who was your pick for Best Actor in a Lead Role at the 84th annual Academy Awards? Scroll down to our poll and vote onnwho you would have given the Oscar to in 2012.